Rally in Sukhumi for hunger striking Circassian leader

A rally in sol­i­dar­i­ty with a 67-year-old Cir­cass­ian activist was held in Sukhumi (Sukhum) on 27 September. The former Shapsug leader has been on hunger strike in Krasnodar Krai for more than two weeks.

Ruslan Gvashev, who fought in the 1992–1993 war on the side of Abkhazia, began his strike on 11 September after being fined for per­form­ing a public prayer at the sacred tulip tree in the village of Golovinka, near Russia's Sochi. Gvashev is a former head of the Cir­cass­ian Shapsug Council of Elders; Shapsugs are a Cir­cass­ian subgroup from Krasnodar Krai. Abkhaz and Cir­cas­sians share historic, cultural, and lin­guis­tic links.

Gvashev performed the prayer on 21 May, which marks the Day of Remem­brance of the Cir­cass­ian Victims of the Caucasian War (Cir­cass­ian Day of Mourning) 1817–1864.

Sukhumi rally

A rally was held in Sukhumi on 27 September to coincide with the Day of Lib­er­a­tion of Sukhum, annual cel­e­bra­tions in the city’s Park of Glory on the day Sukhumi was captured by Abkhazian forces in 1993. Gvashev fought in the 1992–1993 war on the side of Abkhazia.

Organ­is­ers of the rally said the event would be held ‘calmly and without provo­ca­tion’.

‘If the pro­test­ers fail to achieve positive results with respect to Gvashev, some of the pro­test­ers will go on a hunger strike’, Caucasian Knotquoted David Dasaniya, one of the organ­is­ers, as saying. ‘Gvashev requires an ele­men­tary apology’, he added.

According to him, Gvashev is ‘ready to die and is con­scious­ly going to do it’.

‘Imagine that, God forbid, Ruslan Gvashev dies. Unsus­tain­able demon­stra­tions, unau­tho­rised rallies will start in the whole Cir­cass­ian world. We act as patriots of Russia and do not want [the situation] to be bad in the south of Russia. We are for peace in the Caucasus’, Dasaniya added.

According toEkho Kavkaza, a rally also took place on 24 September in Israel, which has a sig­nif­i­cant pop­u­la­tion of Cir­cass­ian Shapsugs. Another was held on 22 September in Turkey.

Sochi’s Lazarevsky District Court imposed a ‎₽10,000 ($170) fine against Gvashev on 2 June for ‘organ­is­ing an unsanc­tioned demon­stra­tion’, Caucasian Knotreported.

According to them, the fine was suspended by Krasnodar Krai Regional Court on 2 August but then rein­stat­ed again by the original court on 30 August. The complaint will now return to the regional appellate court, which will make a final decision in the beginning of October.

For ease of reading, we choose not to use qual­i­fiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecog­nised’, or ‘partially recog­nised’ when dis­cussing insti­tu­tions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.